Romney campaign endorses the “Kasich recovery” myth

In an attempt to preview tomorrow’s dueling appearances by President Obama and one-term Governor Mitt Romney in Ohio, Talking Points Memo reports that top Romney adviser Russ Schriefer said:

“Anything that’s happened in Ohio, certainly [Republican Gov. John] Kasich has been helpful to encouraging business to Ohio,” he said. “And it just shows that whether it’s Ohio or New Jersey or Indiana, when you have Republican governors who encourage business, things are better.”

This is part of the tactic Governor Kasich has used to try to take the entire credit for the State’s economy. He’s even attempted to downplay the importance of the auto recovery to Ohio’s economy (when he and his Lt. Governor aren’t busy photobombing themselves into press events where auto companies are announcing major job expansions.)

There’s just a few problems. The notion that Ohio is doing better under Kasich is just a myth, and an easily disprovable one.

Here are the facts of Ohio’s economy before (2010) and since Kasich (2011):

In fact, it’s generally accepted that the opposite is true. The economy has slowed down due to the drastic budget cutting by Republicans like Kasich. Heck, Kasich’s own Council of Economic Advisors even predicted as much in his budget:

Shorter: "Austerity sucks the economy"

In fact, just earlier this year, Kasich flat out refused to deny that President Obama deserves credit for the positive things that have taken place in Ohio’s economy:

“I hope [President Obama] gets all the credit…”- Gov. John Kasich

The notion that Ohio’s economy under Kasich would be doing better but for President Obama only works if you completely ignore the reality that Ohio’s economy was actually doing better before Kasich was Governor.

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Well. When have you ever known facts to be important to republicans? They spend their time inventing phony issues and negative attack ads that they know will work. So while the facts are the facts, it’s whatever perception voters have at election time that counts. The 2010 election was proof of that. A serious look at Kasich’s record and personality should have been enough to eliminate him as a viable candidate. Go figure.

THe problem is that the ordinary people do not know how to research and do not want to take the time for various reasons. I won’t fault them for that. However They feel that they can rely on adds on TV to get the information they need. Non of those adds ever tell you what is really true. Or really hit the issues. I fear for the years to come. As we have seen in Wisconson money wins and we know who has the money. I just hope that like in Ohio Money will not win in the presidential race.